Assessment Type: Annotated Bibliography (Reference List) - Assessment.

Purpose: This assessment allows students to develop research skills and begin to develop critical analysis skills by finding and evaluating a range of different but relevant reference sources relating to a given topic.. This assessment contributes to Learning Outcomes a, c, and e.

Topic: A current business topic - the specific topic will be advised in class and via Moodle. This business topic will form the focus of Assessments 2, 3 and 4 during the trimester.

Task Details: Annotated Bibliography (Reference List)

In academia, as in business, good reports demonstrate the ability to research and identify relevant material to be used as the basis for considering a question, supporting argument and arriving at justified conclusions or recommendations. While there may be many sources relating to any given topic or question, some will be far more suitable than others.

Good relevant supporting material will be:
- Relevant
- Recent (unless considered a seminal or classic article/book)
- Credible

Using the topic given, students need to research and identify 5 different sources which would be relevant if preparing an analysis report for the topic given. Included in the bibliography should be:
- At least 1 peer reviewed article
- At least 1 website
- At least 1 magazine or newspaper article
- At least 1 of the sources reviewed must fail to meet the some or all of the 3 criteria of good supporting material - relevant, recent and credible i.e. be a source you have viewed but decided it would not be appropriate to use - explain why it is not appropriate.

Wiki anything and About.com MUST NOT be included in your sources - good or otherwise.
For each source, pairs are to:
1. Cite the material correctly using Harvard (Anglia) referencing style
2. Briefly summarise the main findings or arguments of the source
3. Briefly critique (evaluate) the source's usefulness, reliability, objectivity or bias, assessing its strengths and/or weaknesses as if you were writing a research paper on the topic given.

Presentation

Assessments should be formatted as follows:
- Word .doc or .docx
- Font - Arial 10pt, Calibri 11pt or Times New Roman 12pt
- Title page
- A 1 line space between each of: heading, citation, summary paragraph, evaluation paragraph
- Each source identified by a heading made up by the Title in italics and the source type.

5 sources plus 500-800 words annotation.